If you’re into primarily gaming, try PikaOS. It’s Debian based and uses the same tooling, but it’s on an optimized kernel. Is generally geared toward gaming.

There are other gaming specific distros of course, this is just the “Debian”-related one. I would not recommend the real debian if you’re mainly into gaming. It’ll need manual intervention and/or optimization to get games running, or at least get them running well. It’s not impossible (it even hard if you’ve got but is Linux experience), but just harder than necessary.

You do know Heroic exists, right? It works perfectly fine.

And I prefer an open source solution integrating multiple platforms to a single closed solution per platform.

It doesn’t affect refurbished computers. It doesn’t affect used computers. And all those still run windows 10 and 11 just fine. You’re just not allowed to sell a windows license pre-installed on new computers with these old processors anymore.

You can still buy them, build a computer with them, and use it, even with windows. Windows supports them just fine. Just oems can’t sell them in a new PC it with windows pre-installed. Used PCs are also fine. You really don’t want a world where you got like 6 versions of a core-i7 in the same store, ranging from 8th generation to 13th, confusing everyone not tech-savvy enough to know (and care) about the difference, so like 95% of people. It also prevents more shady companies from seeking you an old Gen processor, conveniently omitting the details of which generation it is, unless you check the fine print

There are also inverse market effects to your e-waste argument: if companies keep buying old Gen, CPU manufacturers might not scale up production of new generations because demand on old ones stay high, preventing prices of new gen from coming down due to lack of scale.

Finally, this practice isn’t new, it’s been like this for literal decades. There was just some very shady “journalism” going on recently, picking up this change and just misreporting it going full “fake news” on the subject. This is basically a follow up on that “wave”.

You kinda missed most of my points. Because a core advantage of building a PC from individual parts is that you can buy some parts used, or adjust them to what you actually need. You can’t buy the PS5 used cause it just came out, but the components are actually relatively old.

A case can be had for cheap (often with fans). Also a used GPU might allow you to get a bit more performance for the same money (or the same perf for less money). Keep in mind that the hardware specs of the PS5 aren’t exactly cutting edge top tier performance. You can also find a complete used PC with roughly the right specs, and a quick check showed an eBay listing for case+PSU+mobo+3700x+16gb and 512gb nvme + 2tb HDD for 309€. And that was the first hit, with “buy it now”, after 30s on the site.

You can also tailor what exactly you buy to your needs. Maybe 1TB nvme is enough for you, or you can even start out with 500gb. It’s a PC, just buy another m.2 when you really need it, takes 5 minutes to install.

But all that is kinda not the point either. Mainly the advantage is that it’s a PC. It’s not just a gaming thing (though it can be). That is what makes it worth it, also obviously depending on the individual needs. And that’s the point. The PC does what you need, and can be made to change to whatever that is.

When you said “from a pure budget standpoint, no PC isn’t worth it” you also one again COMPLETELY IGNORE that you need to buy games to play. Those are so much more expensive (and have a much more limited selection) on console. And over the lifetime of the console, game costs will have been much more than the device. That’s the point, and why they are relatively affordable, they are subsidized by the manufacturer who makes money on every game bought for it. When a console comes out, they typically loose money on it.

Finally, once a few years have gone by, you can actually upgrade PC parts individually where needed. You don’t have to buy the next generation new one, like with consoles. Again, much cheaper. For people who are on tight budget, this is or should be a huge consideration. Once you got a PC, the next upgrade is so much cheaper than a new console, yet it’ll be equivalent to that new console.

Consoles are cheaper the day you buy them (and not by a lot). Even just weeks or months later the PC is cheaper. Years later it’s cheaper by a lot.

Unless I misunderstood something, the PS5 isn’t “true 4k”, but uses upscaling just like any semi-modern GPU can do as well (DLSS and FSR I think is the AMD version). That changes that equation quite a bit.

I would argue that reocmmending a PC over a (new) console has gotten easier, especially for someone on a budget. Because you can actually get an incredibly competent machine these days (used of course). Even if you decide to pay more to get a better PC, you then have access to the vast PC library with all the bundles, frequent and often deep sales, giveaways, … The cost of the console isn’t just the console, but also what you can play on it and what it costs, and this aspect has improved massively on PC in recent years (and was already pretty good before then).

Of course, if you’re interested in exlusives or first-party titles (like nintendo), or you generally play mostly AAA games, the console might just be the better or only option, but you better bring the wallet for the whole journey.

I understand that not everyone has the expertise, but for 800$ you can put together a very capable system that will beat the PS5 easily. It will probably include some used parts. You don’t need a 4070 in there, not even remotely close.

But yes, obviously the prices have gone up quite a bit over the last years.

Not touching anything with Denuvo, ever. No exceptions.

The article makes it sound like it’s just about the “older” games, but layoffs affect core smite 2 development, too. And not just 1 or 2 people either. Also literally everyone related to eSports, so that entire concept seems dead to them as well. Kinda looks like we’re on a downward spiral, so don’t get too invested.

I also had a pebble 2 hr, even had two because I bought another one off eBay (unopened box). 3d printed some buttons and used is for many years until the battery basically died, and the software started to show it’s age. Notifications became unreliable and such things, making it kinda pointless.

Still want nothing more than for it to work properly again. It’s easy enough to swap the battery, now with the ability to fix the software, there might be a point to it.

Not buying any game that has denuvo is one of the few hard rules I follow

This would be a good time to remember that horse armor that caused a shit storm for fishing like 5$ or something. Good times.

Just in case anyone thinks nextcloud is the solution, it isn’t. Can’t do two way sync at all on Android.

The only studio that I have to completely avoid because of this, who actually make games I’d normally play, is frontier developments. Think things like planet coaster, Jurassic world evolution or stranded: alien dawn. They also never remove it. I think I read a quote that whoever is in charge believes people will “get over it” and eventually buy it anyway. I can’t speak for others, but I sure won’t.

It’s a shame, but there are other games in the genre(s) that are just as good, arguably better. And I already own more games than I can play, as the backlog seems to just grow.

If a game has Denuvo, I will just not buy it. Ever. I won’t even consider it until it’s removed. Thankfully it doesn’t happen too often that games that interest me have it, but it does happen.

Since this can’t be quantified, because there is no real way to get numbers on people that do this or similar things (except for “wild guessing”), three big ones (being public or backed by traditional investors) can’t make an argument for not having it. So here we are.

Kinda wanted to pick the game up at some point. Weird, I seem to have suddenly lost all interest. Huh.

I actually have it on my wishlist. One of those games I wanted to play eventually. Had it on my wishlist now. Certain actions by companies make me lose interest.

There’s enough good games out there. Can skip some based on company actions just fine.

There’s also mods in satisfactory. For example “satisfactory plus” is essentially a full rework, increasing complexity by 2-3x. Obviously needs to be updated for 1.0 first though… Just in case you need something until factorio dlc at the end of October.

Edit: if you’re familiar with factorio mods, it’s similar to and inspired by bobs+angels.

is under active development.

The latest release is from 2018 though? So they just refuse to call something “stable” and everyone has to pick between nightly and beta or something?

Basically any game that doesn’t in itself follow a story, so you are the story (or make it). For me personally it’s building and factory games, like Factorio, cities skylines (1 or 2), satisfactory, Kerbal Space program (1 only), Rim world.

This list is essentially endless.

You know you can turn off the music, right? Just play your own or none at all.

All SSD and NVMe are also “just flash”, and reach 5GB/s and more, often limited by the available interface bandwidth until very recently.

That’s pretty slow for terabyte sized storage. And slow compared to the alternatives, too (600 MB/s or Gabs/s).

Spinning hard disks are faster than this, too. Have been for decade(s).

There are open source implementations of their launcher. Specifically there’s “legendary”, which is the thing that can download and launch games (this is a command line tool). Fortunately there’s also “Heroic”, which will use legendary in the background and give you a normal/usable user interface, desktop shortcuts and so on. Also doesn’t work like spyware for epic on your computer, as their own store/launcher does.

Probably “ports of call” on PC. Still haven’t found an actual modern version of it. There were some half assed attempts in recent years, all with such huge flaws that they still haven’t managed to be considered “playable”.

You can use legendary worth heroic as a user interface (both open source projects) to download and play games you own on epic, no need to install their software.

Surprisingly, I don’t think Terraria has been mentioned yet. Dedicated server can be downloaded for free and fun on Windows or Linux. I’m relatively sure that even spontaneous hosted games (from inside the game) are LAN accessible directly.

There is no need to use their launcher, as there are open source alternatives. “legendary” is a tool that can download sand install games from epic, but it’s command line only. Fortunately, there is also “heroic”, which is a GUI for it and honestly a pretty good one. Can also handle GOG games.

They work well for me, haven’t had epic’s launcher installed in a very long time.

Isn’t the Linux version just the windows version running with the usual compatibility layers (proton or whatever)? In other words, not an actual port?

And this is why I refuse to buy devices that depend on “the cloud” to essentially work at all. Getting harder though…

A Ryzen 5 is a pretty large span of processors, ranging from “old and mostly obsolete” to “modern and highly capable for gaming”. Which one exactly would be helpful for others to help judge their own.

You’re not payingg for just the hardware. You’re paying for it being sustainably sourced (as much as possible, or at least as best as available to consumers), and the people manufacturing then getting a fair wage.

Careful if you’re using Outlook on Android. From what I’ve read, it doesn’t actually locally handle non-exchange accounts like IMAP or POP3 (why are you using POP3 though). It’s done on Microsoft’s servers, so your basically giving Microsoft your e-mails. I’m not sure what kind of access they get to them from the privacy agreement you probably just clicked past.

So Outlook in Android users Microsoft servers to fetch your mail, and the client just shows whatever the server got.